Columbia University sues Illumina over DNA patents

By eCampus News staff and wire reports

March 27th, 2012

Illumina Inc, a gene-mapping company facing a $5.7 billion hostile takeover bid by Swiss drugmaker Roche Holding AG, was sued by Columbia University on Monday for allegedly infringing five patents related to DNA sequencing, Reuters reports. According to the complaint filed in the U.S. District Court in Wilmington, Delaware, Illumina commercialized its so-called next-generation sequencing (NGS) products despite knowing about the patents, obtained between 2009 and 2012 and assigned to Columbia. The university said its patents cover NGS technologies that allow rapid and precise DNA sequencing, which are particularly important in using individuals’ genomic DNA sequence information as a basis for providing health care…